


A New Oasis

by SeaCrest



Series: Like Pebbles in a Pond [1]
Category: Those Who Went Missing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 12:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaCrest/pseuds/SeaCrest
Summary: In which Isa contemplates the passage of time.





	A New Oasis

**Author's Note:**

> This is an entry for the [Fresh Waters Biome Event](https://thosewhowentmissing.deviantart.com/journal/Fresh-Waters-Biome-Event-quest-rules-updated-725732021) at [Those Who Went Missing](https://thosewhowentmissing.deviantart.com/), an ARPG on deviantART. If you have any questions, please visit the group page; I cannot help you.
> 
> Cross-posted [here](https://seacrest-star.deviantart.com/art/Waterways-Introduction-A-New-Oasis-731451827).

Isa let her tail drag through the water as she waded into the lake, feeling a rush of energy as the water rippled around her. Her own oasis was long gone, but she had wandered far enough to find another oasis that had yet to be drained, still a lush green patch of land in the rocky desert landscape. It wasn't quite like coming home, but it was as close as she would get. This oasis was smaller than hers had been; hers had been a series of small lakes and ponds, feeding from the same five springs, a life net in the middle of a rocky plateau. It had faded slowly, painfully, as the springs dried up one by one and the lakes followed, their water seeping away as the world changed and the flow of life shifted. This oasis wasn't small, either, but it consisted only of a single lake, surrounded by palm trees and ferns, with vibrant desert roses dotting the landscape. Tough desert grasses, thin and flexible enough to be woven, but strong enough to be made into Isa-sized ropes, grew in abundance, their rough, gray-green stems shifting constantly in the breeze. 

It was hot, as was to be expected in a desert, and the sun was unforgiving. But the water Isa stood in was still cool to the touch as her long tail floated on the surface. She paused, closing her eyes as she felt the water-rounded pebbles shift under her feet. There were no other creatures here, most likely due to the blazing hot afternoon sun, but to an esk, it was nothing. She barely even registered the heat of the sun on her fur. Backtracking a little, she settled down at the edge of the lake, her legs in the water as she laid down. She was so...glad that she had found this place. Although her oasis was still home, she missed how it had once been, long, long ago. She barely remembered what those first days had been like, right after she had been transformed...ah, but she'd forgotten already what she had been. In those brief moments after her awakening, she had thought she knew who she was, but that had quickly faded when she'd realized what she had become. It had taken her a while to realize, exactly, what she was, and what all that entailed, but she had remembered some tiny nugget of information that whispered to her _Esk. You are an esk._ She hadn't known what that meant until years later, when she had discovered the Conservatory and others like her. Others who had been lost. 

A red tailed hawk circled high in the sky, it's harsh cry echoing off of the rocks surrounding the lake. It must not be hunting, to make that cry. Otherwise it would scare off all of the prey, not that Isa had seen many creatures here other than the hawk. A brush-rabbit had run by earlier when she had arrived, but time was such a fickle concept for Isa. Sometimes hours passed before she moved, lost in thought and immobilized by her mental absence. It had been so long since her transformation that time blurred together. She still noticed the cycle of night and day, of course, but a whole day might pass before she returned to reality. Sometimes she wondered if she had been like this before her transformation. She had found a few clues to who she had once been; scattered bundles of dried herbs, a smooth, round grey stone that had a jagged hole in it, revealing a geode within. After all this time, she assumed that she had once been a human, but she had never found more answers than that.

Shaking off her musings - she had come this far because she wanted to explore, not meditate, although now that she had found this place, she thought that she might return here again - and rose, dripping. Giving herself a shake, Isa left the water and looked around her at the plants and the rocks, trying to decide where she wanted to go next. She was already drying quickly in the desert heat. Spotting a patch of lilac sunbonnets, she headed towards them. They called to her, being that she manifested her own lilac sunbonnets back in the remnants of her own oasis. The empty lakes and barren slopes were a far cry from the lush paradise she remembered, but there was one thing that would never change; her tiny flowers, beautiful and delicate. No matter what else happened to her oasis, she took comfort in the fact that she would remain, and see what new things time would bring. But now that her oasis was well and truly dried up, she felt freed from the responsibility of remaining there to keep an eye on any lost souls who found her home. There had been several, over the years, but after refreshing themselves in the waters of her oasis, they had moved on, without needing her help. So now she felt no requirement to stay.

Following the spring that fed this particular lake, and the sunbonnets that speckled the rocks along her path, Isa half-walked, half-blinked in and out, hopping along her chosen path towards the source of the spring. It was entirely instinctual to her now, to teleport instead of jumping, or simply blink in and out mid-stride, but it had taken her years to get used to it, to control her teleportation rather than letting it happen at random at the most inopportune times. Nowadays she was never stranded far from home, with only her own feet to carry her back - if she could even figure out which direction she needed to go, that is. Ah, those were exciting (and very stressful) adventures...

Isa wondered what she would find today. She hoped that she would find other creatures, or something interesting, although she wouldn't be entirely disappointed if her adventures ended with only the discovery of this new oasis.


End file.
